I've been doing this side by side Pixelfed vs Instagram thing at the end of each month. I am posting the same content on both platforms, seeing what the differences look like in terms of engagement.
As I have said before, I've been tracking my followers, likes on each post, comments, and other calculated statistics on both my Pixelfed and Instagram account to see what the difference really is between using the two mediums.
The results? Well, we're 3 months into 2024 and I think there's some common trends I'm noticing.
Let's start with raw numbers.
Followers first.
I started the month with 115 followers on Pixelfed and 424 followers on Instagram. I begin April with 123 followers on Pixelfed and 447 on Insta.
Both went up as I kept posting regularly throughout the week. Which is good!
On both accounts I'm also responding to comments I receive to keep the interactions up as well.
So, let's shift over to comments.
Basically, year to date I'm getting about 2.5 comments on average on Insta. On Pixelfed? About 0.7 on average. Neither get a lot of comments, to be honest.
On Instagram - the most comments I received was 10 on a post about the collapse of the Key Bridge last week. On Pixelfed, the most comments I received was 3, on that same post.
Let's talk about likes.
In March I averaged the following:
Instagram - 25.7 likes / post
Pixelfed - 10.8 likes per post
For Insta, that's an increase from January of over 5 more likes per post. For Pixelfed, that's a boost of 2 likes per post over January's numbers. Both are good and seeing a nice increase since the beginning of the year.
In terms of most liked, on Instagram, it was my post on "One Piece Ace's Story" which had 43 total likes! The Pixelfed version of that post had 6 likes https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/677884083488326326
My top Pixelfed post in terms of likes was 41 likes, this time for an adorable Caturday post. The equivalent on Instagram got 22 likes. https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/674621769379984464
EDITED: Noticed I was mistaken on the numbers, so changed the top Insta post and link.
Overall since 2024 began - I am averaging the following:
22 likes per post on Instagram and 9 likes per post on Pixelfed.
Now here's an interesting piece of data - likes per follower.
On Instagram, I'm currently at 0.05 likes for every follower, or about the equivalent to 5% of my followers actually liking my posts. For Pixelfed, it's 0.08 likes per follower or 8% of my followers liking my posts.
It's small, but there's more likes per follower on Pixelfed than Instagram.
Also, I've noted that since the beginning of the year - I've increased my follower count by 61 on Instagram and by 36 on Pixelfed.
That's a 16% increase on Insta and a 41% increase on Pixelfed. It helps that my Pixelfed follower count is are lower. But, also, it makes the reach of my Pixelfed account vs my Instagram account a bit more impressive when your realize I have 3 times as many Instagram followers than I do on Pixelfed.
A couple random notes:
Instagram has an active manga community and if you hit the right niche posts, it hits and spreads.
Insta doesn't love Caturday like the Fediverse does. It just doesn't. All of my cat pics do better on Pixelfed than Instagram. Always have.
Sometimes, the most surprising posts take off on either platform and I just don't get it.
That's not bad, just showing how there's never too much to learn from checking this stuff out.
Anyway, I hope my wonky walkthrough of my two accounts didn't bore you.
If you are interested, you can follow my Pixelfed account here @mdmrn@pixelfed.social
If you don't want to, that's fine. I'll likely be boosting those pics over on my Mastodon accunt anyway.
@mdmrn@urusai.social @mdmrn@pixelfed.social I enjoyed the write up. These kinds of numbers are always fun to look at.
@cliftonmr Thank you! I always find this kind of stuff interesting. But never know if anyone else will. It's a real nuts / bolts look at the statistics, but I think it's helpful. Especially as I'm posting literally the same stuff on both platforms with alt text on both.
FOSS alternatives feel empty when you want to make friends with niche shared interests:
- DMs and group chats make Instagram feel like a (social) necessity
- Facebook is mostly used for groups, marketplace, messenger
- Instagram users choose people/convenience over privacy/security
(I love that likes and bookmarked posts are separate!!! Never get rid of this feature!!!)